Path computation enables service paths to be established across NGNs and is a complex but important part of delivering services, such as video-on-demand, VPNs and VoIP. When services are required to meet a myriad of different criteria, for example, cost, capacity, reliability and quality-of-service, “multi constraint-based” path computation establishes the optimal service paths to meet the customer’s needs. Aria Networks is the world-leader in multi constraint-based path computation and is now extending that lead with the introduction of multiprocessor support.

NGNs and services being deployed by Telecom companies around the world are growing rapidly. NGNs transport millions of complex service paths on network infrastructures that comprise inter-connected equipment at tens of thousands of locations. Due to the challenges of scalable path computation, Telecoms companies historically compromised on the number of constraints that define and influence a service, resulting in sub-optimal networks and services. Telecoms companies, equipment vendors and OSS vendors require scalable, carrier-grade path-computation that is capable of establishing one or many service paths in a fraction of a second.

“Multiprocessor-based path computation provides the scale, performance and fault-tolerance required to deploy complex point-to-point and multipoint services for traffic-engineered packet and optical networks,” said Dr Jay Perrett, VP of R&D at Aria Networks. “With the power of Aria’s multiprocessor-based path computation Telecoms companies can now define each and every service with many constraints and rapidly and accurately compute complex service paths as well as solve multi-layer capacity planning and optimisations in a time-efficient manner.”

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is currently developing Path Computation Element (PCE), a standard for a path computation architecture and implementation, reflecting the growing importance of path computation to Telecoms Companies.

Aria’s unique artificial intelligence-based iVNT software architecture lends itself well to distributing path-computation capabilities across an unlimited number of processors. This capability will ship with Aria’s latest iVNT MPLS-TE optimisation, planning, and path computation software, and will be available next quarter in all other iVNT products. iVNT is available for Windows, Linux and Solaris operating systems and can be deployed as a standalone software suite or embedded in Network Management Systems (NMS), Operational Support Systems (OSS), or Path Computation Elements (PCE) of third parties using a variety of robust interfaces.